


And the Storm Will Hear Us Sing --  A Modern Yoroiden Samurai Troopers AU

by RaeSeddon



Series: And the Storm Will Hear Us Sing [1]
Category: Yoroiden Samurai Troopers | Ronin Warriors
Genre: Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-11 01:58:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19522573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaeSeddon/pseuds/RaeSeddon
Summary: The world is about to be engulfed in a battle for survival that was predicted over a thousand years ago. But no one believes in apocalypse prophesies anymore, do they?   It's up to six teenagers and an errant boy to save the world.





	And the Storm Will Hear Us Sing --  A Modern Yoroiden Samurai Troopers AU

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tofukitten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tofukitten/gifts).



> This fic follows canon loosely, so if you're looking for a totally canon compliant AU, this isn't it. It incorporates a lot of information and errata I and others have translated from art books and novels that never made it into the series when it was animated. It will also delve into the drama albums rather deeply, as I always believed it was a crime they were never animated.

**Cologne, France -- Early February 2019**

“Your grandfather hates surprises.” Marguerite Yagyu slid the plane ticket across the table, just touching the tips of her daughter's hands, crinkling the paper disapprovingly.

“But he loves _me_.” Nasutei beamed, slipping the ticket into a puffy coat pocket. Her mother, a tired looking woman with red and gray-streaked hair stretched her arms over the table to grasp her daughter’s hands.

“Nautche, I want you to think about this,” an expression twisted over her face mashing concern and uncertainty. “Your grandfather hasn’t been doing well and I don’t want you to regret missing your gap year--”

“He’s not doing well because no one **believes** him!” Nasutei pulled her hands away. It was like this every time she’d wanted to visit-- every single request denied because she was either underage or her grandfather’s “fragility”--but now that she’d graduated high school, her gap year proved the first and best chance to see the old man since secondary school.

“He’s delusional, you know he is.” Marguerite said through a frown. “It’s why your father and I moved back when we did; he was drawing you into that...Armageddon fantasy of his. Demons and magic armor--Storm Troopers or something.” She tamped at a cigarette butt in an ashtray that had long since been put out.

“ _Samurai Troopers_ , and my name is Nasutei.” It was an imperfect transliteration but it was the first name she’d known. A name that summoned years of playing hide and seek in her grandfather's palatial manor (to a child’s estimation, at least), and bedtime stories of warrior-scholars who stood between terrible evils and the destruction of the world. There was always a poem or a riddle in each story, to which the old man would demand the answer the next night. Eight years of next nights later, she rose from her bed the night before graduation and promptly canceled her gap year. The solution had come to her on the edge of a nightmare of flame and shadow and broken glass underfoot.

**“There is a moat of no water surrounded by a wall of no stones, through which only spirit pilgrims may pass-- what are the moat and wall?”**

_‘The moat is mist and the wall is smoke--only spirit pilgrims can safely travel through both, and onto the gates of the Youjakai.’_

“ Darling all I’m trying to say is...think of the future. You’re so smart, you could get into any college you wanted but if you go tomorrow to support Konosuke, you’re shooting yourself in the foot before you’ve taken your first step.” 

“God, you really hate him, don’t you?” Nasutei stood, scowling down at her mother. “I need to finish packing, and then I’m having dinner with Lisette--”

“Nautche--”

“That's not my name!” She stomped towards the bottom of the stairs, long red hair swaying to the movement of her hips.

“It’s on your birth certificate!” Marguerite snapped, reaching angrily into her purse for a silver cigarette case and lighter. “It was a mistake to stay in Japan after you were born; you act like Konosuke and Kasai are your parents.” 

“At least grandma called me by my name.”

She began to ascend, letting out a deep breath. She didn't hate her parents, really-- they were just hard to _like_ , and it was easy to like someone but loving them? That took work; it took both parties being willing to open themselves and her parents specialized in being (proudly) closed books. (Her father due to decades of social conditioning [being a paragon of the _shashin_ \-- office worker] and her mother being so used to separation and silence that there were times she seemed surprised her daughter existed at all. As if she couldn't quite remember how or when Nasutei came to be. Her birth was locked behind a wall constructed around the first nine years of her life.)

“Fine,” the woman said at last crinkling her barely lit cigarette into the ashtray. “Do what’s best for you, chase some fucking fairytale. We’re not footing the bill if you change your mind halfway through.”

Nasutei was halfway up the stairs, her mother’s words trailing up after her like the smoke and bluster they were. She wasn't sure who hated her grandfather more: her father for foregoing his childhood in lieu of thousand year old washi paper scrolls or her mother for convincing them to stay after Nautei was born and “poisoning” her against an entire half of her bloodline--which was lunacy. She could quote _Hunchback of Notre Dame_ as easily as _The Pillow Book_. True, sometimes her accents blended wrong and she still walked things through one or the other before blurting it frustratedly in English-- yet they never really _warred_ in her throat or her heart. She’d embraced her bilingualism in ways her parents never had, and by that, came to peace with her whole self: red hair and half-almond shaped eyes, wide hips and delicate joints, each a counterpoint to the other.

She sighed again, turning into her room where several pieces of luggage sat open and half-packed. Deciding which books to take was a harder task than she expected it to be. She’d memorized her grandfather's library as a child, so at the very least she wouldn't bring anything he already had, but so much had been published since then. She picked up a plain-typed journal decorated with komon and turned to the middle of it, smiling: “Metallurgical Magic: The Evolution of Steel Folding” by Nasutei Yagyu. It was hardly National Geographic quality but it was a start. 

Her phone buzzed: a text from Lisette about ordering drinks before she got there.

Merlot. Ask for the bottle, my treat. I'm going to need it.

Balling up and tossing in a favorite blouse, teal eyes drifted over to a narrow rolled up scroll on her desk--a New Years fortune from her last year in Japan almost ten years ago. It had foretold danger and hardship with a light at the end. Her grandfather had been so sad when he saw it, but said nothing when she'd asked. She'd remembered it after the dream, when on waking she still smelled scorched stone and an ionic charge to the air.

_'One bad fortune isn't the end of the world.'_


End file.
